sort of hit a wall. My company has grown faster than I ever expected. I’ve become more successful than I ever imagined. But there are some things causing me a ton of stress.” She looked away and crossed her arms again.
“I can’t tell them what I’m really dealing with,” thought the entrepreneur.
Then she continued: “I’ve had to let go of people I really liked because I’ve learned people who fit at one stage of a business’s lifecycle may not work as the firm evolves. That’s been hard. They were the right employees for an earlier time but they don’t belong now. And some things are unfolding at my shop that have turned my life upside down. I don’t really want to get into it. It’s just a very shaky time for me.”
“Well, on your point about elevating your leadership game,” responded the homeless man, “please remember that the job of the leader is to help disbelievers embrace your vision, the powerless to overcome their weaknesses and the hopeless to develop faith. And what you said on letting go of employees you liked but who no longer fit where your business is now at—that’s a normal part of growing a business. And it happened because they failed to grow as your enterprise rose. They started coasting. They stopped learning, inventing and making everything they touched better than they found it. And as a result they stopped being awesome value incubators for your venture. They likely blamed you. But they did it to themselves,” the uninvited stranger indicated, surprising his listeners by the sophistication of his insights on team-building and winning in commerce.
“Uh. Exactly,” replied the entrepreneur. “So we had to leave them behind since they no longer delivered the results we were paying them for. A lot of nights I wake up at 2 AM soaked in steamy sweat. Maybe it’s like what F1 racer Mario Andretti said: ‘If everything seems under control you’re not going fast enough.’ That’s how I seem to feel most days. We’re blowing past our key performance indicators so quickly it makes my head spin. New teammates to mentor, new brands to manage, new markets to penetrate, new suppliers to watch, new products to refine, new investors and shareholders to impress and a thousand new responsibilities to handle. It really does feel like it’s a lot. I have a huge capacity to get big things done. But there’s a lot on my shoulders.”
The entrepreneur tightened her arms and scrunched her forehead together absentmindedly. Her thin lips pulled together like a sea anemone shutting on sensing a fatal predator. And her eyes suggested she was suffering. Intensely.
“And, about your point about being addicted to technology, just remember that intelligently used, it advances human progress. Through using technology wisely our lives become better, our knowledge becomes richer and our wonderful world becomes smaller. It’s the misuse of technology that’s ruining people’s minds, damaging their productivity and destroying the very fabric of our society. Your phone is costing you your fortune, you know? If you’re playing with it all day long. And what you just said about all the pressure on you, how fantastic. ‘Pressure is a privilege,’ said tennis legend Billie Jean King,” the homeless man shared. “You get to grow. And ascending as a person is one of the smartest ways to spend the rest of your life. With every challenge comes the gorgeous opportunity to rise into your next level as a leader, performer and human being. Obstacles are nothing more than tests designed to measure how seriously you want the rewards that your ambitions seek. They show up to determine how willing you are to improve into the kind of person who can hold that amount of success. Failure’s just growth in wolf’s clothing. And pretty much nothing else is as important in life as personal expansion, the unfoldment of your potential. Tolstoy wrote, ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.’ Become a bigger person and you’ll also automatically become a better leader—and a greater producer. And yes, I agree that growth can be scary. But my mentor once taught me that ‘the part of you that clings to fear must experience a sort of crucifixion so that the portion of you that deserves high honor undergoes a kind of reincarnation.’ Those are the exact words he shared with me. Freaky and deep, right?” said the hobo as he rubbed the holy-man beads he was wearing.
He kept going without waiting for an answer.
“My special teacher also told me that ‘to find your best self you must lose your weak self.’ And that only happens through relentless improvement, continuous reflection and ongoing self-excavation. If you don’t keep rising daily you’ll get stuck in your life, for the rest of your life. Makes me consider what the journalist Norman Cousins said: ‘The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.’”
The homeless man raised his raspy voice and observed, “My special teacher taught me that once we transform the primary relationship with ourselves, we’ll find that our relationships with other people, our work, our income and our impact transform. Most people can’t stand themselves. So, they can never be alone. And silent. They need to constantly be with other people to escape their feelings of self-hatred over all their wasted potential, missing the wonders and wisdom that solitude and quiet bring. Or they watch TV endlessly, not realizing it’s eroding their imagination as well as bankrupting their bank account.”
“My life feels so complicated. I feel so overwhelmed. I don’t have any time for myself,” the entrepreneur repeated. “Not sure what’s happened to my life. Things have just become hard.”
“I understand you,” the artist said as he placed an arm over his new friend’s shoulder. “My intuition tells me that you’re going through a lot more than you’re sharing. And that’s okay. You know, some days life seems so messy that I can’t get out of bed. I just lie there, man. I close my eyes and wish the fog in my head would just go away. Even for a day. I can’t think straight some of the time. And on those days, my heart has no hope in it at all. It sucks. And a lot of people suck, too, man. I’m not anti-social. I’m just anti-moron. Too many dumb people around these days. Taking stupid fashion pictures of themselves with pouty lips in clothes they can’t afford. Hanging with people they don’t even like. I’d rather live a thoughtful life. A risky life. A real life. An artist’s life. Drives me crazy how superficial people have become.”
The artist then punched one fist into his other hand. Unyielding creases appeared along his jawline and a blue vein twitched in his thick neck.
“Sure. I got you,” said the homeless man. “Life isn’t easy, people. Tough slog a lot of the time. But like John Lennon said: ‘Everything will be okay in the end. And if it’s not okay, it’s not the end,’” he offered kindly, spouting yet another quote from what seemed to be an unlimited supply in his brain.
The artist softened instantly, smiling in a way that looked almost sweet. He exhaled mightily. He liked what he’d just heard.
“And,” the vagrant continued, “this climb up into the rare-air of personal and professional mastery that the three of us have obviously signed up for is not for the weak. Upgrading your life so you know real joy and optimizing your skills so you own your field can be uncomfortable a lot of the time. I need to be honest. But here’s one key thing I’ve learned: the soreness of growth is so much less expensive than the devastating costs of regret.”
“Where’d you learn that?” questioned the artist, as he scrawled the words into his notebook.
“Can’t tell you. Yet,” the homeless man responded, heightening the mystery of where he’d discovered much of his insight.
The entrepreneur turned away from the artist and jotted down some of her thoughts into her device. The homeless man then reached into a pocket of his hole-ridden plaid shirt and produced a heavily used index card. He held it up like a kindergarten student at show-and-tell.
“A distinguished person gave this to me when I was a lot younger, as I was starting my first company. I was a lot like you cats: dripping with dreams and
